Ever walked into a conference room and realized half the people aren't actually there? Their bodies are present, sure. They’re nodding. They might even be holding a lukewarm latte. But their minds are miles away, lost in a loop of "what ifs" or scrolling through a mental reel of better scenarios. This isn't just about one distracted person. We are seeing a rise in the phenomenon of a team stuck in her daydream, where the collective focus of a group is hijacked by a single leader’s unrealistic vision or a shared, escapist fantasy that ignores market reality.
It’s weird.
In business school, they call it "strategic misalignment" or "visionary friction." In the real world, it’s just people living in a bubble. When a manager or a key stakeholder gets caught up in a specific, idealized version of the future—the "her" in this daydream—the entire team often gets dragged into the slipstream. They stop solving the problems in front of them because they’re too busy servicing a dream that hasn't been stress-tested.
The Psychology of the Shared Illusion
Why does this happen? Usually, it starts with high stakes. According to research on organizational behavior by experts like Amy Edmondson at Harvard, psychological safety (or the lack thereof) plays a massive role. If a leader has a very specific, intense vision—her daydream—and the culture doesn’t allow for "wait, that’s impossible," the team defaults to a state of performative compliance.
They start living in the daydream too. It's safer there.
Think about the infamous case of Theranos. Elizabeth Holmes had a daydream. It was a beautiful one: a world where a single drop of blood could diagnose hundreds of diseases. Her team was essentially stuck in that daydream for years. They weren't just "working hard"; they were operating inside a narrative that defied the laws of physics and biology. Real engineering problems were treated as temporary inconveniences that the "dream" would eventually solve.
This isn't just a startup problem.
You see it in legacy companies too. A CMO decides that a specific, flashy rebrand is the "soul" of the company. Suddenly, the product team, the devs, and the sales staff are all pivoting to support a vibe rather than a functional tool. They’re stuck. They are iterating on a fantasy.
Signs You Are Currently Stuck
How do you know if your department has drifted off into a collective trance?
Honestly, the clearest sign is the "Language of the Future" vs. the "Data of the Present." If your meetings are 90% about how things will be once the "vision" is realized, and 0% about why your churn rate is spiking today, you’re in it. You’re deep in the daydream.
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Another red flag is the suppression of dissent through "vision-shaming." If someone brings up a practical constraint—like, say, the budget or the fact that the technology doesn't exist yet—and they are told they "don't see the big picture" or aren't "aligned with the mission," that's a daydream defense mechanism. It’s a way to keep the bubble from popping.
The Cost of Escapism
It's expensive. Really expensive.
When a team is stuck in her daydream, opportunity costs skyrocket. You aren't just losing money on the dream itself; you're losing the time you could have spent on viable projects. You lose your best people, too. High performers hate hallucinations. They want to ship things that work. When they realize the roadmap is based on a daydream rather than a strategy, they update their resumes.
Breaking the Trance: How to Wake Up
Getting a team out of a collective daydream requires a bit of a "cold water" approach. It isn't about being mean or cynical. It's about grounding.
One of the most effective methods used by high-output organizations is the "Pre-Mortem." Proposed by research psychologist Gary Klein, this exercise asks a team to imagine that the project has already failed. They have to work backward to figure out why. This forces people to step out of the daydream's protective shell and look at the sharp edges of reality.
You also need a "Designated Realist."
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This isn't a "No" man. It's someone whose job is to tether the vision to metrics. If the daydream involves "disrupting the industry," the realist asks, "What is our customer acquisition cost today?" It’s an annoying question. It’s also the only question that matters.
Practical Steps to Ground Your Team
- Audit your vocabulary. Stop using vague, aspirational nouns. If you can't explain the week's goal to a ten-year-old without using words like "synergy," "ecosystem," or "transformation," you're probably drifting.
- The 50/50 Rule. Spend half your meeting on the long-term vision, but the other half must be dedicated to "boring" operational roadblocks. No exceptions.
- External Benchmarking. Get someone from outside the "dream bubble" to look at your progress. A consultant, a peer in a different industry, or even a brutally honest customer. They don't have the emotional attachment to the daydream that you do.
- Kill your darlings. If a specific feature or idea is the "heart" of the daydream but it's failing every A/B test, you have to be willing to cut it. A team stuck in her daydream will try to "fix" the test; a healthy team will fix the product.
Reality is usually less exciting than a daydream. It's messier. It has more spreadsheets and fewer soaring speeches. But reality is also the only place where you can actually build something that lasts. If you feel like your team is drifting, grab the anchor. It might be heavy, and it might be unglamorous, but it's the only thing that's going to keep you from floating away into total irrelevance.
Start by asking the hardest question you’ve been avoiding all month. Do it in the next meeting. See who flinches. That’s where the daydream ends and the actual work begins.